


What I'm Looking For

by turps



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turps/pseuds/turps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the picfor1000 challenge on live journal, a challenge where you have to write a story in exactly 1000 words based on an assigned image. My image was  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21410365@N05/2163547154/">this</a>.</p><p>A story about finding your way in the world, and being a shape-shifting sheep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I'm Looking For

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I've told before, but back in the mists of time the first ever bandom story I posted was for this challenge. It was Mikey and Gerard centric, and every year since my own personal challenge has been that I'd write something based on those two.
> 
> Sadly, this year I've missed the official deadline for the challenge, but I still wanted to post.
> 
> As always, thanks go to themoononastick who remains an excellent beta.

Gerard was thirteen when he first changed.

Of course, no matter how many books that he’d read -- their pages thin and dusty under his fingers -- no matter how many talks he’d had with his parents and grandma, the reality of changing was worse than expected.

Not in a physically painful way. Gerard had been prepared for cracking bones, splitting skin and blood. Hell, he’d been looking forward to that with all his morbid-obsessed-with-gore self. It’s just, he hadn’t expected to turn into a sheep, especially being a shape-shifting sheep in a family of wolves.

His family said all the right things. That it was okay to be different. That you had to be proud of what you became. That genetically things like this happened sometimes. All the right words as they held Gerard close, hands gripped in his wool as they said he was still their son, their first born. Their pack.

It still sucked.

~*~*~*~

Things got better when Mikey changed to a sheep too.

Not that Gerard shared his overwhelming relief when on his first change, Mikey didn’t sprout glossy black fur, sharp teeth and claws, but instead dingy looking wool and skinny black legs, his eyes wide and wet-looking as he looked toward Gerard and gave a plaintive, baaaaaa.

Because yeah, Gerard did feel better that he wasn’t alone. That now he’d have company when his family sprinted and hunted while all Gerard could do was graze. And not even graze well when New Jersey grass tasted of dirt and dog piss.

~*~*~*~

For a while, things remained okay.

While being a sheep wasn’t cool, Gerard got used to wandering deserted streets, his hooves clattering against the sidewalk, Mikey his constant companion. Together they kept to the shadows, Gerard showing Mikey the parks where you could eat semi-clean grass, baa-laughing when Mikey attempted to run and rolled down a slight bank, his still wobbly legs splayed and wool straggly and dull in the moonlight. 

Sure, they weren’t hunting, and maybe extended family gatherings were an exercise in ignoring cousins licking their lips, but none of that mattered. How could it when Gerard had Mikey, and they spent hours concocting plans about undercover sheep heroes and discussing how Gerard could gather and spin his own wool.

It’s how everyone got scarves for Christmas that year. If they looked a bit tatty with multiple dropped stitches and a distinct scent of BO, well, that was fine. His parents and grandma wore them regardless.

~*~*~*~

But then, everything changed.

Suddenly the world felt constricted and wrong. Gerard wasn’t a wolf, hell, he didn’t even feel like a human at times, and no matter how hard he tried, that didn’t get better.

Gerard tried to pretend. He did. With all of his heart. But there’s only so long you can force yourself to keep going. As cliched as it was, Gerard needed to find himself, to discover who he really was, and that meant getting away.

It also meant leaving Mikey. Not for long, Gerard promised that when they stood forehead to forehead -- or snout to snout -- Gerard fervently saying he’d be back soon, trying to ignore how his heart ached as Mikey gave his support like always, saying he understood, that of course Gerard should go.

Gerard did, and in the process, his heart cracked a little.

~*~*~*~

Not that Gerard stayed away completely.

That was impossible, his bond with Mikey something that remained constant -- in no way diminished by distance and time. Phone calls and texts, Mikey complaining about school and the inefficiency of hairspray on wool, it was contact Gerard needed and craved. Someone who was there always, a voice at the end of the line, words on a screen, even in person at times.

It was a time where Gerard changed once again, but mentally this time. When he started to find his place in the world, even if that did result in him getting kidnapped in sheep form one night. Not that Gerard wants to remember the details, it’s embarrassing enough being mistaken for a team mascot and subsequently held for a ransom. Especially when he looks nothing like ‘Shaggy the Sheep’ no matter what Mikey the traitor would say. 

So yeah, Gerard found his place in the world. College helping define who he was, and if that was a shape-shifting sheep who came from a wolf family. Really, what could be better? 

Unless you had a shape-shifting sheep as a brother.

~*~*~*~

Time passed, Elena went to hunt in the heavens and Gerard came home.

But, despite being content in his own skin -- his own wool -- deep down, Gerard still felt unsettled. 

As much as he loved being with his family, to wander familiar parks and leave piles of pellets outside of the butchers, it was time to move on again. A whole new world beckoned, a world full of new people and maybe, more shape-shifting sheep.

Not that Gerard needed them as such. He had Mikey, and a family who accepted them both unreservedly, love given always, even the kind that shouldn’t exist between wolves and two sheep. It’s just, Gerard may not have needed more sheep shifters, but he wanted them, and that was important. 

Which is why Gerard set out to find and form his own pack.

~*~*~*~

Except, this time he wasn’t alone.

In skin form at first, and then later, in wool, Gerard wandered the road on the outskirts of yet another new town, darkness allowing him to relax after shifting. In no hurry, Gerard enjoyed the the taste of crisp grass as he stopped for a snack, directing Mikey to an unflattened clump with a nudge of his snout.

Which is when they heard the first bleat.

Head jerking up and eyes wide, his body pressed against Mikey’s, Gerard watched, baaaaing softly when the first sheep appeared.

The first of three.

Three who looked for a long time in return, staring until, as one, they bleated a greeting.

And something inside Gerard clicked into place.


End file.
